Welcome to the GWTW Forum.Guests (non-registered users) can view the forum but are unable to post. If you don't have anything to say then why would you bother to register?One of the most popular sections of the GWTW Forum has long been the Swap Meet. A great place to sell old, seldom flown kites or to get great deals on used (gently flown) kites. Only registered users can see the Swap Meet section, let alone wheel and deal. 1000's (literally) of kites have changed hands thanks to the Swap Meet.There are several more benefits to being a registered user, but you'll have to join our little community to find out all the "secrets".Questions or concerns? Contact Steve ... just drop an email to: forum.gwtwkites@gmail.com

OK, who else has noticed that Webshots is pushing out spyware/viruses just by looking at someone else's pictures ? As if those annoying pop-up adds aren't bad enough, now the site is pushing out this garbage. I was just looking at a nice SUL kite that's for sale, pictures on Webshots, and I get the dreaded 'Your computer may be infected with... blah blah blah...' message. Click here to clean your PC.

I get paid good money to clean this crap off of my customers machines, so I know to kill out of IE through the task manager when you see that... DON"T CLICK ON ANYTHING on that page. It's better to pull the power cord out of the machine than to click on that screen !

Webshots has been going down hill for a while, but this is really sad. It's not the first time, I've seen this a few times from WS in the last few months. There are some great photo archives on WS, and it's too bad that you have to risk your computer's security to see them.

I've written to the tech department on the subject. I'll post their answer. I haven't had that problem on my Mac, but I do get pop-up ads to use their printing service every time I upload now. (They call it a service, not an ad).

Sadly, I still prefer the folder management system Webshots uses to the other services. I am open to enlightenment on this aspect of other photo websites.

thanx for the info i guess i will be looking also although i dont have much to move i will go with whatever john decides if that is copacetic i share pics for pleasure not to screw friends and family up thanx again KO no pressure john

That is a symptom of the IS2010 family of virus's that is going around, whether it is being served by a Webshots advertiser or you got it someplace else, once you have been infected you will get that message all the time.

Like Must said NEVER CLICK ANYTHING IF YOU RECIEVE A MESSAGE LIKE THAT, that downloads additional malware to your computer. CTRL/ALT/DEL and end task on your browser immediately. Educate everybody in your family of the same.

I just had to help my sister in law for an hour over the phone in an attempt to get rid of that one. She's an IT person for the miltary with security clearance, but has not educated her kids yet. Also doesn't know about msconfig, where the reg keys reside etc, etc, I often wonder how people get these $100k a year jobs with so little knowledge but to make a long story short.

It's a nasty one, she had her banking and credit card info stolen and it killed her computer before we got it off. Like any tech her solution was to lose everything and buy a new drive. She was frustrated after that hour with me and didn't want to finish the job, oh well.

I've avoided Webshots for years, and have mentioned it to John before over the last couple of years but get the same song & dance - that he's emailed them - but they have the best folder management so he'll continue to expose all the forum members to these threats. To each his own.

Activate your status bar in your browser, hover over any picture link and look down there BEFORE CLICKING, if it's going to Webshots DON"T CLICK IT! If it's in John's post DON"T CLICK ON IT!

Jeez webspace is free, Windows has a nifty built in FTP agent where organizing and uploading is done right in an explorer window just like you would do any file organizing on your computer, what could be easier? There are 100 freeware progams that will write you a thumbnail page from a folder of pictures in four or five clicks then you save that to your site. No add's, no malware, no info harvesting.

« Last Edit: January 16, 2010, 12:10 PM by mikenchico »

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"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see" John W Lennon

"People do not quit playing because they grow old, they grow old because they quit playing" George Bernard Shaw

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Could one of you fine individuals show me a webpage on any of these hosting sites showing a good album storage display system?

I'd love to see it, really.

I have about 7000 photos with text accumulated over several years on Webshots and would love to have a similar Website on a more secure site. When I started on Webshots, it was the best of what was available, and on my Mac, for the most part it still is. But I am open.

Please point me to a well done site with large amounts of photos and text.

I know that picasa will accomadate you just fine John.....get 1g free and then you can pay a modest amount for more space. and the decided to keep runninhg the deal of - if you upgrade you memory with them you get a free "eye fi" sd card for your camera....wirelessly upload your pix fromthe camera to the computer or direct to a couple of hosting sites...picasa is a program that runs on your computer and identifies every image file on you drive - does not move them just identifies them and provides a great user interface to mull through of them.....

John, I'm sorry that this post seemed to be aimed at your huge collection of pictures, which is the best archive that I've seen. I risk going to webshots to see your pictures, and although I've seen junk pop up with your pictures, the problem I had the other day was from another user's pictures.I know this garbage is coming from webshots, and not resident on my machine before I went to webshots. Pop-up adds are one thing, annoying, but this is malicious software that's being distributed and is going to mess up alot of people's machines and cost them alot of $$$ to fix if they can't fix it themselves. I haven't seen any anti-virus software that identifies and blocks this garbage before it's all ready on the machine. Now, of course, Mac users are immune to alot of this stuff, but some of us have to do business with our computers don't have a choice but to run PCs. I've gotten all of my PCs for free from work, and I'll be darned if I have to pay for a Mac, no matter how cool they are. I'd rather spend my $$$ on more kites.

As far as which hosting service to use... I use Flikr, but couldn't say that it's the best. I would think with a serious archive like that, you should consider doing your own webpage. That way it's always yours, and you have full control over what goes on.

edit: oh and John, like Rob, I have nothing but respect for your photo's and efforts to archive so much history. Watching the forum and posting relevant pictures, your contribution here to everybody is ... well... . Change isn't easy, you're comfortable, but really it's time to change. Sorry if I came across personal, it's webshots, I had a bad experience the other day too

The main problem with Webshots is the amount of advertising, I'm sure Webshots isn't sending virus's, that would be one of the advertisers. But when profits take priority over customers things degrade and Webshots went over that line 2-3 years ago. As a PAYING customer like YOU visitors to your site should not be bombarded with advertising to the point that your albums are unusable. As you stated, now as a paying customer even you are being harassed - that is sooo over the line it's time to leave.

I use Flickr & it's OK for what I do. I understand you needing more so do check out Picassa, it's "Synch to the web" feature may make you very happy. In short, you create a folder on your computer (not in iPhoto's on an Apple though, just someplace else", select that folder as your synch folder. Now any changes to that folder including editing of photo's, tags or descriptions and any additions, deletions or changes to your folder structure are automatically reflected on your Picassa site.

I don't know what could be easier or more convenient then the capability to work on your albums whenever and wherever you choose on your own computer, using your own preferred operating system and programs, online or offline. Then having any changes automatically reflected to your website when you are connected. 1 gig is free and you already have it if you have a gmail account, 20 gig is $5 a year, 80 gig is $20, 200 gig is $50 and you get that free wifi card.

Switching, unless you have your webshots site mirrored on your own computer won't be easy, but just imagine if you had been on Picassa it would already be mirrored and portable

I'm not a big fan of how big & powerful Google is getting but so far their aim seems to be customer service & innovation. Of course they are making money off every click you make but it is still kept so deep in the background you are not too bothered by it and the info they gather isn't so personal as to be scary ... yet. That may change if the Google browser, Chrome O/S, and Cloud Computing become the preferred way of computing. At that point though I'll probably go back to land lines and snail mail, or just dropping by your house. Remember that?

« Last Edit: January 17, 2010, 07:59 AM by mikenchico »

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"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see" John W Lennon

"People do not quit playing because they grow old, they grow old because they quit playing" George Bernard Shaw

How can we retrieve all our albums off WEB&%#*S' without doing further damage? Dumb n nummmmer...What a bummer??

Hopefully you don't rely on a website to be the only source of your pictures.

My personal method of handling photos

Load all the photos to a folder on the computer "in-coming"

copy (not move) all files to another folder named with the date/subject on my external HDD in a "2bburned" folder (when this folder size gets close to DVD capacity I burn them to disk)

I then begin to edit the new photos in the "in-coming" (delete, correct, and crop)

once all the editing is done the files are copied to the external HDD to a folder (named with the date/subject) to a folder named "photos" (and again when the size is large enough to fill a DVD I burn a disk)

so what I end up with is a DVD with all the original files, and a DVD with all the edited files plus any I elect to keep on the HDD

My Mac does not have an Intel processor (6 years old), so I can't use the super cool Mac interace. I can upload photos in groups of 5. Finding and adding the text along with the upload works out to about 3 minutes per photo. Or, in other words, if I worked about 8 hours a day for 6 weeks, I could transfer my photos and text to Picasa.

Gentlemen, until a faster system is found, it appears I will stay with the blight that is Webshots, just as many of you will stay with PCs instead of spending your money on a safer computer.

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